As I noted in my original comment, I think that's the obvious context
Gee whiz. I read that yesterday then totally forgot it when I replied today. Clearly, my GCF is flaring up again (geriatric cranial flatulence). Sorry about that.
Anyway, I bet you are right - but it seems an odd choice of words to me. Canaries were used as early warnings because the "need" for such warning was
expected as inevitable. That is, in coal mines, "mine gas" (typically methane) is a
very common natural occurrence. I used to work 2015 feet underground in an Arizona copper mine, so I learned a bit back in the day about mining. While such gases are extremely rare in copper mines, we still had detectors all over the place - just in case.
Anyway, while program managers for software development teams may "expect" there to be bugs, I never met a developer (and I worked with 400+ of them) who expected there to be bugs in their code. So if or when one was found, they were not happy, and genuinely embarrassed. Of course it is always better to find them "in-house" rather than by a customer out in the field, but still - it seems almost like a demonstration by management of their lack of confidence in their team to name that channel "Canary" - as though they are expecting there
will be developer mistakes, instead of being ready - just in case one slips by. And yes, as a manager, you have to expect mistakes. But you don't want to tell your teams you expect them to screw up.
We had "peer reviews" too - which were brutal (no room for pride or personal feelings to get in the way there). The individual "module" development teams would review their own code amongst themselves to look for bugs and only after the code passed muster there, would the code go to more widespread "Alpha" testing.
